Welcome To Rimworld: Archotechology · 8:34pm Last Tuesday

What Is This? For every 5CAD "coffee" in my Ko-Fi jar, I'll be watching a video in my Discord server from Mr. Samuel Streamer and commenting on it in text, in a style similar to Estee's "deadstreaming" events. Mr. Samuel Steamer does over-the-top, heavily-modded playthroughs of the sci-fi colony management sim Rimworld, which can make for absolutely insane hilarity.

This blog goes over the series that have been earned so far, which is the short Rimworld: Gymbro series that serves as a prequel to the following Rimworld: Anomaly which provides a good look at the game's latest DLC with only light modding, and then starting into the Vampire: the Masquerade themed playthrough titled Rimworld: Blood Feast (another 65CAD of tips and we can do the whole thing!).

This blog is where you can let me know what times would be best to do these so that you can tune in (you can also join the server ahead of time and grab the "watcher" role to be pinged whenever a watch is starting) since my initial attempt was on a Saturday and that turned out to be a bad day.

This is a "primer" blog, going over various aspects of Rimworld so that everyone has some base knowledge going in. Previous primer blogs were: Welcome to (A) Rimworld, Friends & Foes, and Pawns Are King.

And now, onto the blog itself, which is focused on the enigmatic archotechs.

What Is An Archotech?

An archotech refers to a technological superintelligence that thinks on a level beyond human understanding. There's no consistency in how they appear or where they originate, and whatever a given archotech's goals may be, humanity can only guess. The only thing that does seem consistent is that, when they come about, they pursue transcendence, which is turning the entire planet they're on into a massive machine, with the inhabitants either incorporated into the resulting transcendent world or outright destroyed.

That doesn't mean that archotechs are hostile, per se. For the most part, the archotechs, once they've taken over a world, just keep to themselves. While some ships that draw too close to transcendent worlds vanish, never to be seen again, there's also strangely benevolent accounts of the crew having their illnesses cured or having new knowledge psychically implanted into their minds.

Sometimes archotech-level technology can end up separated from the archotechs themselves, and while humanity may not understand precisely how they work, they can figure out how to use the remnants they find. Even more precious than glitterworld-level technology are these bits of useable archotechology.

Types of Usable Archotechnology

Vanometrics are a strange form of power-producing technology, creating energy from seemingly nothing. Getting a hold of a vanometric power cell can be a huge boon for a colony, adding power to the power grid without requiring any kind of fuel. These power cells are always pretty small, however, implying that there's some kind of issue with scaling them up that only the archotechs know about.

Archotech prosthetics can be found around. And on a rimworld, where colonists can easily lose body parts to combat and other hazards, quality prosthetics are always a big deal. Find yourself an archotech arm, leg, or eye, and you won't just find a replacement, but something that can grant the user superhuman capabilities.

Archotechs are the source of various psychic technology, having the mysterious ability to interface directly with the human brain. This has led to everything from a psychic shock lance for disrupting enemies' though patterns, to devices meant for soothe turbulent emotions, to even the technology that the Shattered Empire in the Royalty DLC use to grant psychic powers to those they favour.

Archites are capsules of microscopic bits of archotech-created machines, used for gene editing. Certain powerful genes in the Biotech DLC, appropriately called archite genes, require these in order for them to crafted into genetic templates. This includes several of the genes that make the vampire-like sanguophages work.

Archonexus

Your planet may have more than just scattered bits of archotech-created machinery. You might be on a planet that hosts a piece of one of these superintelligences itself, called an Archonexus. Added in the Ideology DLC, pursuing an Archonexus is one of the ways you can end the game, though it ends on a decidedly ambiguous note, with the colonists' fate uncertain.

A series of quests can have you studying various structures across the planet's surface, gaining information from other factions, and spending vast amounts of wealth. And through all of it, you can't know for certain what this archotech wants or whether it will be grateful for your work in finding and activating it. You're simply putting your faith in the fact that wherever it takes you and whatever it does will be better than eking out an existence on this rimworld.

Maybe you'll be sent to another dimension. Or incorporated into the superintelligence itself. Or just destroyed outright. Dare you embrace the unknown?

Void Entities

Remember what I said about archotechs not necessarily being hostile? Toss that out for this section, because the particular breed of archotech that's introduced in the Anomaly DLC is definitely hostile to human life. Connected to some kind of hellish dimension simply called the Void, activate one of the strange technological monoliths on the planet's surface and you'll be in for a bad time.

Creatures and structures known collectively as void entities will do all manner of unsettling things to your colonists' minds and bodies, as well as the landscape. Hoards of twisted mutant creatures, biotechnological parasites, periods of deadly unnatural darkness, and more ensue if you provoke the Void and its inhabitants.

But much like with a normal archotech, there's the possibility to adapt what it creates for your own use. Contain and study the entities, and a whole new technology tree opens up. It makes for a high-risk, high-reward playthrough where you try to turn your enemy's power against it before it can destroy you. Work hard enough and you may be able to figure out how to cut the connection between this dimension and the Void entirely.

And those are the archotechs! A part of the lore that can lurk in the background or be centre stage depending on the focus of your playthrough.

Next time, since we've touched on it a bit in this and previous blogs, I'll go over the various endings that you can pursue (or not!) when playing the game.

Take care, all.

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